Plastic materials that have been picked, sorted and collected for recycling are characterized as being of light weight and relatively bulky (low bulk density). In recycling operations, it is usually important to minimize storage space requirements for the articles to be recycled and to reduce transportation and handling costs. By definition, plastics are capable of being compressed or formed and are generally pliable. Such materials lend themselves to being compressed into compact, dense bales using commonly available baling machines. "Bale-able" plastic materials such as plastic bottles or containers are fed into a baling machine and tightly compressed into a dense and compact cube shape, usually about 3'.times.4'.times.5'. After being so compressed and compacted, the bale is usually bound with steel wires or plastic straps to hold it together during subsequent handling and transportation.
Before the baled plastic material can be re-used as raw material for new plastic products, it must be processed into a form suitable for use with plastics handling and processing equipment. Such recycling processing equipment typically includes, at a minimum, equipment for granulating the recovered and used plastic materials into pieces of a shape and size suitable for subsequent processing. Most such granulating machines are limited in the size of the raw materials they can receive and process. Typical granulators available and used in such recycling operations cannot receive and process a baled plastic package as described above, but are designed to "grind" a steady stream of loose plastic bottles or other articles. However, as described above, the baling process compresses the bottles together and they become interconnected and interlocked such that when the ties around the bale are cut off and removed, the bale largely retains its shape. The individual plastic bottles do not fall apart from one another, but must be physically pried and struck with a tool to break them loose from the bale.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide specially designed equipment and a related process for tearing apart the compressed and interlocked articles in a bale.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a machine and related process for completely disintegrating bales of interlocked materials and releasing the individual articles quickly and with no need for manual labor.